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960 No oil psi resolved,Plastic pistons no good![900/95] posted by JT on
Monday, 10 April 2000, at 10:18 a.m.
On Saturday I got the 960 running for the first time. All is in good order and want to says thanks for all the help. Tim and Jim, big thanks to you guys. As you know I have had some problems with no oil psi after I got the 2.9l back together. I thought that the oil pick-up was plugged with slug or something. I know I did not want to drop that oil pan so I figured that I had nothing to lose by trying to clean the sump. I put in 6 quarts of the gunk parts cleaner (comes in 3 qt cans) thru the dipstick hole and let it set for 2 days. When I drain it the oil sump was spic & span! I flushed it with oil, then tranny oil, and then with oil again. I then filled two caulking tubes with mobil-1 0w-30 oil and with a rubber stop (with a center hole) pressurized the oil system thru oil filter inlet. I put the filter on, filled the sump with oil, and cranked the engine. No oil psi! I had to know what the heck was going on with this no oil psi. Still not wanting to drop the pan I went after the new oil pump. When I got the pump off it did not look right to me. What I thought should be the oil psi relief valve looked strange. Never seeing one of these before in the new Volvo engines I was not sure how it was suppose to work. What I found was a cylinder in a cylinder with a spring going thru it. I went to Volvo and ordered everything I could (execpt the pump) that was associated with the pump. It was clear when I got the new parts. The inside cylinder used to be a piston. The wire snapring chipped away at the piston top everytime it would hit the stop. Since the relief valve is made out of PLASTIC with the force of the spring behind the piston top, it was chipped away until the spring blew the top on the piston off! No oil psi. The new piston is made out of steel. So this will not happen again. This was a new oil pump that had this plastic piston in it. I am told that the 850's use the same pumps. My sisters 850's oil pump took the big vacation about 2 years ago and I wonder if this was the cause. The casting date stamp on the oil pump in the 960 with the plastic piston was 98. So formational purposes, the next time you do a timing belt, you may want to check to make sure you do not have a plastic piston relief valve.
--Bis Später, jtb
Re: 960 No oil psi resolved,Plastic pistons no good![900/95] posted by WBain on
Monday, 10 April 2000, at 11:05 a.m.
This sort of thing, really cheap parts, makes me wonder if I should have bought one of these cars in the first place. Maybe, as Tom Irwin had remarked, I should have bought a 40 Turbo Wagon for my wife.
How does hthe oil pan come off and how can I check the oil pump and pressure relief valve? What if I have a bad one and need to fix it?
Thanks for the info. I think perhaps this 6 cyl. is the new version of the PRV V6!
--wbain '86 744Ti M46
700 900 Maint FAQ
Re: 960 No oil psi resolved,Plastic pistons no good![900/95] posted by JT on
Monday, 10 April 2000, at 1:37 p.m.
Herr Bain, The good news is that you do not have to take the oil pan off to check/replace the relief valve piston. I never took my pan off. I am really happy that I did nót have to take that step. I do not know how many oil pumps came with plastic pistons or when there was a change to metal ones, but I say rather safe than sorry. If you are coming up on a timing belt change, pull the crank pulley and the crank timing belt gear. You will see four Torq head bolts that hold the oil pump in. Remove the bolts and the pump slides straight out. The piston was about $12 and the oil pump kit was about $23 (incl frt seal, oil pump seal, oil pump gasket). If you have a plastic piston in the relief valve you will have to separate the oil pump by removing the back gasket and removing 2 small hex head screws. Push the piston out and put the new one in. That's all. When you get ready to install the oil pump back into the engine you will need a special tool to get the front seal over the crankshaft. I used a thin walled piece of pipe but I think the book called for Volvo tool #5455. It makes the job real easy to get the oil pump back on.
I hope that there are not many of these plastic pistons out there. I feel that something so mission critical should be bulletproof! This engine is way better the the PRV V6's, but for $10k for a new engine there should not be an oil psi relief valve that breaks like this one did!
good luck.
--Bis Später, jtb